


secrets we shared in the dark

by TigerMoon



Series: family is a four-letter word [5]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Pillow Talk, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, this gets pretty fucking heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9685190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerMoon/pseuds/TigerMoon
Summary: There are moments when words fail us, when the ghosts of the past are too loud, and we cannot hide from their gaze.Ozpin can't hide his ghosts from Qrow anymore.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please, please take heed of the tags on this work. This could be triggering for some people.
> 
> This is a prequel to 'left unspoken' and 'three small things,' but should probably be read after them to really understand what's going on.

“Oz? Talk to me?”

 

There’s a silence in the bedroom, one so heavy that the words barely seem to break through. The moonlight pools over the two them, highlighting the paleness of Ozpin’s skin, the light dusting of freckles painted across the tops of his shoulders. Thin, ropy scars made white by age criss-cross his back in stripes, down his hips below and past where his slacks hide creamy skin. Qrow never questioned them – all huntsmen have scars – but perhaps, he reflects, he should have.

 

Those marks were not placed on his skin by Grimm.

 

It’s to one of those scars Ozpin reaches now, his fingernails scraping against the mark as it crosses over his shoulder and along the length of his throat. Scrape, scrape, scrape until thin lines of crimson appear under the white of his nails. His amber eyes – shadow-dark and ringed with exhaustion like kohl – are closed, dark grey lashes long against his cheek, face hidden in shadow – but the tightness of his jaw is still there, the slight tremor of his kiss-wettened lips. Qrow brushes his fingertips against Ozpin’s shoulder and he shivers, drawing a deep breath.

 

(This was so much easier before, before sly glances and sharp laughter, before stolen kisses and furtive touches. Before nights spent resting against another’s side, hands held together. Before this corvid had built a nest around his heart. Before-

 

- _hands pushing him down, a knee between his legs, and he can’t, not again, not again,_ _ **stop**_ -

 

-before. Just before.)

 

“Did I do something wrong?” Qrow shuffles a touch closer on the bed. His cheeks and chest are still flush with arousal, but concern has overwrit everything in his voice. “I didn’t – hurt you, did I?”

 

“No.” The response is automatic, his voice soft. “No, I… I am fine, Qrow.” A lie; his hands are trembling, his body taut like a drawn bow, ready to run at a moment’s notice. His eyes flutter open to meet the other’s gaze. There’s a darkness in those amber eyes, something that shades them dark even in the light of the broken moon, and he looks away again. “At least you stopped,” he murmurs, so softly and so brokenly Qrow barely catches it.

 

 _At least you stopped_.

 

(“Qrow, no, stop _-_ ” and he had sounded so godsdamned _afraid_ -)

 

He catches Ozpin’s wrist, pulls at him until he turns to face him again. “You told me to stop, Oz, of _course_ I did,” Qrow says, and there’s desperation in his voice. “Did you expect me not to?”

 

Ozpin is silent – a silence that says far, far too much – and Qrow has never felt so sick in his life.

 

“Gods, Oz!”

 

The older man is determinedly avoiding his gaze now; he pulls his arm free of the other’s grasp when his hold goes slack. Drawing one knee up to his chest, he wraps his arms around his leg and rests his head atop his knee, the other leg dangling off the bed. “Oz,” Qrow tries again, and his heart is sick watching his love curl away from him like this, “I didn’t know-”

 

“...it was a very long time ago, Qrow. It isn’t important now.”

 

Under the moonlight, he looks small and vulnerable, so unlike the great and powerful man he has always seemed to be in the day. In a way he almost looks childlike; ice forms in the pit of Qrow’s stomach, sinking, sick and horrified by the implication of his words. “A very… _fuck_ , Oz.” Qrow’s approach is hesitant, and when Ozpin doesn’t flinch away he wraps an arm around the other’s slim shoulders and smooths his calloused fingers over the scarred skin. Ozpin trembles under his touch. “You were – how old?”

 

Ozpin looks up toward the ceiling, his narrow eyes dark with shame under his mussed hair. “No older than your niece Yang, I imagine,” he says dully. Qrow wants to vomit; Yang is barely eight, and to think of her hurt like that- “It was so long ago… Does it matter anymore?”

 

Qrow takes his free hand and laces it in his own. “It matters to me,” he says, and Ozpin’s breath hitches.

 

“I still remember them,” he whispers, his voice quavering. “I remember every single one of them, Qrow, every one of their faces. The weight of them, the stink, how they’d laugh when – when I’d choke-” The moonlight catches on the first tracks of moisture on his cheek and Qrow’s heart breaks. Even after all these years at the man’s side, he’s never, ever seen Ozpin cry, and yet here he is now, with these terrible silent tears streaming down his face. It would be eaiser if he were sobbing, or screaming – anything but this awful calm resignation. “I tried to fight. At first. But when you’re small… and they’re so much stronger… after a while, I thought, if I was good, if I obeyed, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.” His lower lip trembles; he swallows thickly, dashes away the tears with the back of one hand. “So I stopped fighting.”

 

There’s a pause; Qrow strokes his fingers over his shoulder, feeling his fingertips catch on the scars. “Did it work?”

 

“No.” Ozpin smiles at that – smiles! - and the heartache and self-hatred he masks behind it are too painful to look at. “No, it didn’t. It’s funny, really, that I thought I could make a change, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Qrow?” And the smile’s falling away, his eyes utterly anguished, and Qrow pulls him close, lets him bury his face in his broad shoulder before the first quiet sobs escape him. Ozpin clutches him like a lifeline, long thin fingers gripping his arms as he draws in shaky breath. It’s unnerving how quiet he is, even as his body shakes and the hot tears trickle from him over Qrow’s bare skin; he covers his mouth with a fist when a loud sob escapes him, and Qrow makes a quiet soothing murmur and strokes his shoulders in a comforting motion.

 

(Has anyone ever done this for the man before? The thought worries in the back of his mind as he lays his cheek atop Ozpin’s head. Ozpin has always carried the world on his shoulders – but what happens when those shoulders break?)

 

“I couldn’t,” Ozpin finally manages through his sobs, and Qrow begins to comb his fingers through his soft silver hair. “They told me – if I wanted it to stop I – I could make it stop-”

 

“They were lying, Oz,” Qrow murmurs. “Guys like that, they don’t give a damn. They want to see someone get hurt. That’s how they get off, the power rush, and you were there. That’s all.” It’s like a sword to Qrow’s heart – he’s never seen Ozpin this vulnerable, this pained, and it hurts so damned much. Hurts more because he can visualize it, Ozpin as a child, small and afraid and wide-eyed and begging, and there’s no one Qrow can get revenge on. No one to punish. The perpetrators are all either old or dead, and this is what they have left behind, an ocean of sorrow large enough to drown a man in. And Ozpin is drowning. Qrow isthe shelter from the storm, and he hangs onto Ozpin like his life depends upon it, his warm hands caressing his shoulders, his voice soothing his tears away with soft murmurs until he knows by the droop of the other’s shoulders that he is spent.

 

When he knows Ozpin is listening, he drops his voice low. These are the words that matter. These are the things he wants to say, so much more important than the ‘stay with me’s and ‘I love you’s that he keeps tucked behind his heart for this legend of a man. “It wasn’t your fault. I promise you, Oz, it wasn’t your fault.”

 

Ozpin freezes in his arms, his fingers gripping Qrow so tight it hurts. “You can’t know that, Qrow,” he says.

 

“Yeah, I can.” He leans the other back, pushing them apart enough to look him in the eye. “I’ll tell you every moment of every day until you believe it – Oz, you weren’t a Huntsman, you were a child! How were you supposed to fight back?” Ozpin’s eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed, so clouded with shame they look like they belong to another person entirely. Before he can look away, Qrow leans forward and presses his lips to his forehead.

 

“...Qrow?” It’s so quiet, and hesitant, and that Ozpin is still doubting himself just makes Qrow even more resolute.

 

“You can always tell me no, Oz. You can always tell me to stop. You are the one in control here. Just… “ Qrow reaches out and cups Ozpin’s face in his hand, his thumb wiping the tearstains away. “Let me help you, Oz. That’s all I ask.”

 

Ozpin’s hand covers Qrow’s before he rests his head back against Qrow’s shoulder and trembles. The moonlight is bright, the shadows long and baring their fangs; Qrow lays his head back atop his love’s own and sighs.

 

It’s a long wait until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and let me know what you think, even if you hated it!


End file.
